Peculiar Motion
by Dinogeek
Summary: A phenomenon in which galaxies are inexplicably drawn towards each other even as they go their own ways. Or, why everything that separates must eventually come back together. Reunion fic.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So I got this book about parallel universes and I was looking at random physics stuff online and I got into a cosmological mood (because yes, my moods are that strange) hence the title of this story. It's post-Reichenbach so spoilers ahoy. Probably two chapters, but maybe three. Enjoy! And just remember, reviewing will prevent you from being sucked into a black hole... And that is totally not a lie... ^-^**

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><p>John never meant to get into a gunfight. He had just been trying to walk to work. The crowd swarmed around him, noisy and fast. He wouldn't have noticed it before- his mind caught on the words, but he forced himself to think them. Before Sherlock… he never would have noticed the chaos, someone laughing here, someone yelling there, everyone with a story to tell, if only you would observe.<p>

He felt separated from the crowd, like he wasn't a part of them, like there was an invisible barrier floating in the atmosphere around him. Somehow that made it easier, though; easier to try and observe like Sherlock had done, to look for the signs that no one else seemed to notice.

Perhaps that was why he noticed what no one else on the busy street seemed to be able to catch- a woman about to be shot. He didn't see the shooter, or even the gun, but she was just a few feet in front of him when she suddenly stopped, attracting his attention. She stared into the alley off to her left, face going pale, and then looked around carefully before slipping into the dark side street.

On some instinct, John stopped, sensing danger. He glanced down the alley as he passed just in time to see the woman enter an abandoned building, and then circled back around and entered the same path. He pulled the door open carefully, making as little noise as possible, and trailed the woman's footsteps up the stairs. But there was something else, too- another pair of footsteps, but he hadn't seen anyone come into the building before the woman. He redoubled his caution, straining to hear anything.

"What do you want?" It was a woman's voice sounding more cautious than afraid. That would be the woman he followed in here. Another voice spoke, a man's, harsh and blunt.

"Well, I want you dead, is what I want." John moved faster, banking on the two being more caught up in what they were doing than alert enough to notice any noises he might make. Up ahead, the woman was stalling for time.

"Why? I've never seen you before in my life."

"No, but you've heard more than is good for you. Sorry about this," the man finished sarcastically. John got to the door just in time to see the man raise a handgun and aim it at the woman, looking at the scene from a side angle. Without even hesitating, he tackled the man, yelling to the woman over his shoulder,

"Get down!" The man threw him off, but the force of the impact had knocked the gun out of his hand, forcing him to backtrack for it and giving John time to clamber to his feet as the woman, yielding his advice, ran out the open doorway. The man brought the gun to bear, but John swiped his arm upward, deflecting his shot and knocking it loose from his hand again. The stray bullet had shattered the window, raining glass down onto the street below, and John knew it wouldn't be long before the police arrived.

He seized the gun before the other man could get it back, drawing down on him, but the woman's attacker was already heading for the door. John fired a couple of shots after him, but it was no use- he was gone. He exhaled heavily through his nose and lowered the weapon, putting the safety on and hiding it in his jacket. His mind suddenly flashed back to the last time he'd done that; it had been a year now, but that year had seemed to take forever. He shook his head and returned his focus to the matter at hand. The woman had come back in after the man had fled.

"Thank you," she said quietly. John smiled at her; the adrenaline raced through his system, and he realized that despite the danger he felt better than he had in over twelve months. He really did miss the action, he thought. It was unnerving how often Mycroft was right.

"No problem." He glanced around as sirens rang into the street. "We need to go now, before the police get here; come on." He took her by the arm, leading her down the steps and out the back entrance, watching alertly for both the police and the mystery man. Once they were a sufficient distance away, they slowed their pace and caught their breath. The woman looked shaken up, beginning to hyperventilate, so John sat her down on a bench.

"Here, just breathe in, you're fine. What's your name?" She began to calm down enough to respond.

"Dr. Jane Tyler; not a medical doctor, I'm a cosmologist." She gave a slight smile, as though she got that question a lot. John smiled back.

"John Watson; I_ am_ a medical doctor. Do you have any idea what that man was talking about?" Jane shook her head.

"I've never seen him before in my life; I don't know why he was trying to kill me." She began to look upset again, so John decided to lay off his questioning.

"Alright, it'll be fine; I'm going to take you to someone I know. He can help." Lestrade was still technically a DI, but to say he wasn't in good graces with the rest of his department was an understatement. Still, he could help, and quite frankly he was the _only_ member of the Met that John would trust worth anything after what happened with Sherlock.

Fortunately, no one looked at them with any suspicion and they were able to make their way to Lestrade's house without any interruptions. John knocked on the door, suddenly wishing that he didn't still have the gun in his jacket. Lestrade opened it a few seconds later.

"John!" He seemed surprised, no great wonder considering he'd been fully expecting to never see the doctor again. John gave him a slight smile.

"Can we come in? There's been a bit of an… incident." Lestrade groaned.

"What have you done now?"

"I did absolutely nothing. Until I got into a gunfight. This Dr. Jane Tyler; someone tried to kill her about twenty minutes ago and we don't know why. I was wondering if you could help us." Lestrade sighed, thinking how much this was like it had been when Sherlock was there; now John was getting into his own trouble.

"Sure, I'll see what I can do, come on in." He went into the house and the two followed him. They took a seat in the living room, Lestrade sitting directly in front of Jane on the couch. "Now, did you see who it was that attacked you? Did he look familiar at all?" Jane shook her head.

"I've never seen him anywhere before now; he said something about I'd heard too much, I don't remember exactly."

"What's your job?"

"I'm a physical cosmologist; I work at the space observatory on the outskirt of town."

"Do you do anything with radio communications? Or anything like that at your home, not your work?" Jane thought hard, shaking her head slowly.

"No, nothing like that at home, certainly. At work the only thing we're doing like that is a test for cosmic wave particles, but that's looking for interference from space, not radio waves." John had a sudden thought.

"But could it pick up things like that? Radio waves, I mean; is the test machine capable of receiving them." Jane nodded slowly, starting to catch on to his idea.

"Well, theoretically they could pick up interference from _any_ length of wave particle, because that's what it was built for, but if it received a radio signal from our friend I certainly didn't notice it."

"Could the signal have come in while you were distracted or busy?" Lestrade asked. Jane shook her head quickly.

"No, we have a monitor on it at all times recording everything that comes in, and there's always someone in the station room to make sure that none of the equipment breaks down. If we'd picked up a radio signal there'd be some record of it." The three were at something of a loss; the only thing that could have picked up the radio transmission seemingly hadn't. Suddenly John knitted his eyebrows, leaning forward.

"Wait a second- Jane, could the machine have picked up just the waves and not the actual sounds being made?" Jane looked confused, so he elaborated. "You said the machine was designed to pick up signals from wave particles, could it have picked up the radio waves but not… I don't know, _interpreted them_ correctly?"

"I think I know what you mean," Jane responded. "The machine wouldn't have registered the voices because it's only designed to pick up the waves. So the radio waves from their conversation would be on there but not the actual voices." Lestrade brought up the flaw in that theory.

"Even if their transmission was recorded on your machine, how on earth could they know it was from the station and not the laundry down the road?" Jane shrugged.

"Well, the station's in a really isolated area, and we're notorious for causing a lot of interference with other signals. That's why we only run the machine at night, because that way nobody's using their mobiles or televisions. It wouldn't have been too difficult for him to trace it back to us."

"And after that all he'd have to do was figure out who was working that night and find them too," John finished. "So what should we do from here? We can't exactly just wait for the man to come back and have another crack at Jane."

"We have every transmission or signal that's ever been received by the machine on record at the station," Jane cut in. "Why don't we go there and find out what this guy was so eager to stop me from hearing? The observatory's closed for repairs, so we won't run into anyone. The faster we figure out what he said, the faster he can be caught."

John nodded slowly, while Lestrade still looked worried. "It makes sense," John told him. "That's our only lead, and once the station's open again we won't have a chance without being spotted." Lestrade finally agreed, still looking wary.

"Do you want to go out there yourselves?" The two nodded. "Alright, but for the love of God be careful, will you? I don't want you two getting hurt." John nodded.

"I still have the gun I took off of our mystery man. We'll be careful, trust me."

"Yeah, where have I heard you say that before," Lestrade muttered loudly enough for John to hear him. The doctor gave him a slight grin, shook Lestrade's hand, and followed Jane out the door. She would lead him to the observatory, and hopefully to the conclusion of this particular mystery. Despite himself, John would be sad to see it go; he hadn't felt this excited about something for over a year now. It was almost like… well at least, it reminded him of Sherlock. John missed that feeling. He had no idea he was about to get it back.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So you know how I said this would either be 2 or 3 chapters? It's gonna be three. So reviews are doubly appreciated, if that makes no sense. :P This is the pure, unadulterated action before all the emotional stuff in the third chapter. Enjoy, have an awesome Friday, and *cough* review. I'll send you a time-warp. ^-^**

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><p>The observatory was in an isolated area outside of the city proper, with nothing for miles around, an amorphous black mass in the darkness. Sherlock slipped in a disused back entrance, careful to maintain absolute silence; he knew the man he was chasing would be here soon. Soon, and then it would all be over. He could go back. Being in London, so close to John, tore at his chest. He was so near, but until he got rid of this man he could never reveal his presence to anybody.<p>

As he opened the door, his eyes alighted on two sets of shoeprints in the dust underfoot. A man's and a woman's; it looked like he'd have more company than he'd intended tonight. That could be inconvenient. Mentally reforming his plan under the assumption that his fellow intruders were also enemies, he slipped quietly through the door and drew his gun, making his way to the center of the station. That's where his man would be.

He pulled back abruptly as he heard a voice. Female- that would be one of the mystery prints he'd seen outside. "It's in here, we keep all the records listed on tape and on the computer. Whatever he's looking for, it'll be on one of these tapes. Assuming it's actually here at all, of course." He frowned; so the two newcomers weren't working with his man. That was good to know- better one enemy than three. But if that was the case, what were they doing there themselves? Then the man spoke, and it just about stopped his heart.

"How long will it take to find? We only have so much time, if I had to guess." John. It was John. Oh God, it had been so long since he'd heard his voice. Sherlock was momentarily distracted from his mission, fighting the overwhelming urge to show himself, to end this all and have him and John take down the mystery man together. He forced down the emotion and refocused.

"If we use the computer records it shouldn't take too long, because we can filter out all the unnecessary wavelengths. Radio waves used to transmit voices have a very specific frequency." Sherlock sank back into the shadows as John and the woman entered the room, heart racing. It was the first time he'd laid eyes on John in almost a year. He looked… worn out. Of course, Sherlock couldn't help but think that he probably looked just as bad.

And then he began to realize what John and the woman's (_probably one of the researchers- there was only one woman. What was her name? Jane Tyler, that was it) _presence meant: they were after the man too. No, no that wasn't right, that wasn't supposed to happen, there wasn't supposed to be anyone here except Sherlock and the man he'd been chasing. They were in danger, too much danger. But he couldn't make them leave, not without ruining the plan he'd been working on for three months.

"The trouble is, I don't know how far back we need to go to find the signal we're looking for," Jane was saying. She entered some numbers into a computer program and a list of data points came up. She was entering the parameters when there was a distinct crash outside the door. The attention of all three swung around to face the noise.

"I think that would be our mystery man," John remarked.

"What should we do?" Jane asked. She was smart enough (you didn't get a PhD in Cosmology without something between your ears) but this wasn't her area, not by a long shot. John thought for a second, remembering his military training and his time with Sherlock.

"Let's stay here for now," he responded. "Once you've found the file, we'll get out, but we shouldn't split up if we can avoid it." As he wondered whether or not he should really go after the intruder on his own, Jane continued searching, faster this time. Inwardly, Sherlock cursed from his spot in the shadows; he needed to get after the man, but he couldn't do that if John and Jane were still in the same room. He knew that if it came down to a fight between John and the man, John could hold his own long enough, but he wasn't willing to put his friend in that kind of danger, not after giving up so much to protect him.

The mystery man was looking for the station room, and it wouldn't be long before he found it; Sherlock needed to put his plan in action _now_, before he lost the opportunity, because he didn't know when he would get it back. He prayed to himself that John would decide to go after the intruder, giving Sherlock a chance to leave and catch up to them before something happened to John. Finally, John settled his opinion. He turned to Jane.

"Stay here, and lock the door if you see anyone coming," John told Jane. "I'm going to track down our mystery man and see if I can get one over on him." Jane nodded and continued to search the tapes while John went after the intruder. Sherlock waited only as long as was absolutely necessary before silently following John out the door, just long enough for Jane to be reabsorbed in the tapes.

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><p>John followed the sound of the intruder to a hallway two over from the station room. He drew his gun, glad of the backup in case things should get nasty, and circled around behind the mystery man. "Don't move," he said loudly. He was immensely glad of his military training when the man spun around swiftly, pulling another gun of his own and firing two shots right where his chest would have been had he not dove to the side behind a pile of boxes and the corner of a wall.<p>

He returned a couple shots of his own, forcing the intruder behind cover himself, but John knew that unless he got a fortuitous advantage he and the intruder would be stuck in a stalemate until one of them ran out of bullets. He did some quick calculations in his head- both of them were armed with L9a1 handguns. They held 13 9 millimeter rounds and 10 rounds of .40 caliber bullets. So, depending on how the numbers fell, both he and the mystery man had a max of eleven rounds of ammunition to their names.

And then he remembered- his gun had already been fired earlier that day, putting him three down with a maximum of eight rounds, not eleven. Oh, not good; his only chance was if the intruder had loaded his new gun with .40 cal ammunition instead if the 9 mil, which would leave him with eight bullets as well, but that was unlikely. Ammunition didn't come cheap, and even if it did (and John had no doubt that this man was the kind of person who could access ammunition for a very low price) reloading your gun with a different type of bullet made no sense. It changed the way the gun fired and was just generally pointless.

The intruder let off a couple more shots in John's general direction (_that puts him down to nine, _John thought) but both went wild, slamming into the wall across from him and spraying a dust of plaster down onto the floor. In spite of himself, John couldn't help but grin- it had been a depressingly long time since he'd had this kind of excitement. The only thing that could have made it better was if Sherlock were here with him. John returned fire, one bullet in the general direction of the intruder. He pulled the clip out and checked; just as he'd feared, he was now down seven to the other man's nine.

There was no way he could stop the man himself until they were both out of ammunition and it became a hand-to-hand fight; to have any chance of success, he'd need somebody else with another gun and he didn't have that right now. The best he could hope for was to hold the man off long enough for Jane to find the conversation she'd accidentally recorded and get it to the police. He suddenly had an idea. It probably wouldn't work, but at this stage of the game he was willing to give anything a throw.

There was a small stack of wood on the floor, directly in the center, just waiting to trip somebody up. John seized a metal pole next to him and smacked down on the pile to replicate the sound of someone stumbling over it, hoping to draw the intruder's fire and fool him into thinking that he was making a move for him. It worked- two more bullets cracked their way past, joining their companions in the wall. John didn't even try to return fire. Now the numbers were on even sides, his seven to the intruder's seven.

That stunt wouldn't work twice though; he'd be looking for it now, not trusting any noise that John made. And that was exactly what John wanted to happen. The man was positioned one the same side of the hallway as John, making it nearly impossible for him to fire a hit, but he might be able to if he could get across the hallway and get him from the other side. And now that the man wouldn't be trusting any noises coming from his direction, he might just have a chance of making it across the hall before the intruder realized what was up.

He drew in a breath and then took off running to the other side of the hall, making it one step from the other side before the mystery man realized what he was up to, firing two more bullets in his direction. John returned the favor, thinking vaguely to himself that they were down to a number of ammunition you could count on one hand now. One of his came close to the intruder, who answered with more fire of his own, forcing John around the corner. He checked his clip again- he had two shots left, and then the gun would be out of the question. And he had a sneaking suspicion that time would be coming soon.

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><p>Sherlock ducked out of sight before either John or the intruder could see him, circling around the back. He was no use to John in a cold standoff, but he made his way rapidly around the other side. The dark, unfamiliar observatory made his progress difficult, and he listened to each resounding gunshot with trepidation, not wanting to be so close only to be too late.<p>

Finally, he weaved a complicated, slightly improvised path behind the intruder, working his way to come up and get the jump on him. Just as the man's back came into his sight, John ran out of bullets. The intruder, one lone shot remaining, pointed his weapon at John, who came out slowly with his hands raised.

"You know, if you'd just minded your own business, doctor, I wouldn't be about to shoot you." He cocked the gun and aimed it at John's chest, but then the two men heard a couple of sounds that neither of them had been expecting- another gun cocking, followed by a baritone voice that nearly stopped John's heart.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you." Sherlock poked the gun into the intruder's back. "_You_ might only have one bullet, but I assure you that my clip is full, and should you attempt to use your last bullet on Dr. Watson, I will use several of mine on you." The intruder slowly dropped his weapon and raised his hands; Sherlock kept his gun trained on him while John (who was pushing all the innumerable questions to the back of his mind until later) slid it out of the intruder's reach and tied him up.

"Well, it seems there is something that can bring you out of hiding," the intruder told Sherlock. "Was it him or me?" He gestured his head at John, while Sherlock kept the gun trained on him.

"Considering that you have now been taken down, it is entirely John. I couldn't care less about you, Moran." Moran got a gleam in his eye.

"So why don't you just kill me then? It's not like anyone would care, and I just came _so close_ to killing your friend…" Sherlock's face hardened and John could tell that he was taking Moran's proposition into assessment. He looked at his once-dead friend.

"Sherlock, don't," he said softly. Sherlock searched John's face for a moment before lowering his gun. John forced Moran down the hallway, tying him up in the station room, moving a thoroughly confused Jane aside, and then once he was properly secured, John turned to Sherlock.

"How the hell are you alive?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Woot, last chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I hope you like the emotional bits coming up. I got to write my gunfight, it's only fair I make up for it with some angstyness etc. As always, I do so love reviews, so... yeah. There's that. Anyways, have fun, and have an awesome Monday/rest of the week. **

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><p>Jane shifted uncomfortably in the tension, making a sudden decision. "I'll… leave you two alone for a bit and go talk to that fellow in the other room." She beat a hasty retreat into the side room, where Moran was tied to a chair, as John stared at the man he'd thought was dead. He was still easily recognizable, but he was thinner than he'd been before, and his blue-grey eyes were one or two shades darker. His hair was still the same inky black it had been before, but he'd cut about two inches off of it, parting it down the middle, and it was swept back and straight. It made him look like some forties film star.<p>

"I'm sorry, John. I had no choice."

"How?" John repeated, finally starting to get over his shock at the detective's sudden reappearance.

"It wasn't easy; I was nearly killed anyway." He gave a short, utterly humorless laugh. "I swear, John, I never meant to hurt you-"

"Never meant to hurt me?" John yelled, cutting the taller man off. "You made me watch you jump off of a bloody building and didn't even bother to tell me that you, by the way, weren't actually dead! How is that not meaning to hurt me?"

"It was better than _you_ dying!" Sherlock responded. "It was my life or yours, and I don't regret what I chose to do." John was now thoroughly confused.

"What do you mean it was my life or yours? What the bloody hell happened on that rooftop, Sherlock?" Sherlock gritted his jaw and stared off into the distance, his mind flashing back to the windy roof of the hospital a year ago.

_"All of your friends will die."_

_"John."_

_"All of them."_

"I met Moriarty up there," he responded. "He was good, too good; I had no choice, John, I swear to you. If I had I'd have done anything else."

"Wait, so he _made_ you fake your death?"

"No, he intended my death to be fully real, just like his was. I suppose in that sense I sort of got one over on him. Moran was the last of his operatives; I'm done now, I can come back."

"What does Moran have to do with Moriarty?" John asked. He still didn't know why Sherlock had faked his death, and he was still furious at him for it, but a picture was beginning to emerge.

"He was Moriarty's only friend," Sherlock responded. "His job one year ago was to kill you unless I killed myself." John was fairly certain that, had it been physically possible, he might just have been knocked over by shock. "That was Moriarty's plan all along, not just to discredit me; he wanted me to kill myself, and he used you as leverage."

"Me? How did he use me as leverage?" Sherlock continued to pace the room, staring at the floor.

"Moran was a sniper with the British Army before he met Moriarty. His orders were to kill you in front of me unless I jumped off of the roof." John rubbed his chin, slowly absorbing the revelation, while Sherlock continued.

"He also had people targeting Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, too. If I hadn't jumped off of that roof all three of you were to be shot at the same time. I just barely survived as it was, and after that I knew I could never come back, not until I'd taken down every last person who ever worked for him. So I did; it took me a year, but Moran was the last. If I'd come back before now, and they'd known I was alive, you and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade would've been killed. _Everyone_ had to think I was dead, there was nothing I could do."

John sat down in one of the station room chairs, processing the string of revelations he'd just received. Sherlock finally looked up, looking at John warily. "I know you're still angry with me. But I really am sorry." John nodded slowly, looking at the detective.

"I spent a year being angry at you, because I thought you'd killed yourself, and I didn't know why; now you're alive, and I do know why." He sighed, but gave a small smile. "I'm done being angry. Massively irritated, perhaps, but not angry anymore." He and Sherlock both grinned at the joke, but they were far from relieved.

"Scotland Yard still thinks I'm a fraud," Sherlock pointed out. John nodded.

"True; that could be a problem when we try to turn Moran in."

"Does Lestrade…" Sherlock trailed off, but the unfinished question was obvious. _Does Lestrade think I'm a fake? _John smiled at him.

"He's the only one at the Yard who never gave up on you; he's the one Jane and I went to before we came here. I need to call and tell him that we're safe. How are you going to tell him you're alive? Or the rest of the Met, for that matter?" Sherlock shrugged faintly.

"Call Lestrade; tell him we caught Moran, but don't tell him I'm alive. Not yet." John nodded and called the Detective Inspector, saying nothing of Sherlock's return, and soon he was on his way out to the observatory. He stopped cold in the doorway when he saw Sherlock. The taller man gave him a wry smile.

"Don't worry, Lestrade, I'm no ghost; although I feel like one. We've kindly captured one Sebastian Moran for you. I believe you'll find that he's responsible for several unexplained murders in the last few years." Lestrade just nodded slowly, still not entirely sure he wasn't hallucinating massively.

"We'll talk about this later," he told the other two men. "For now you two had better get out of here; there are quite a few more officers on the way and a lot of them still think you did those things." The two nodded, realizing that Lestrade was putting his already precarious position at further risk by letting Sherlock go without arresting him. They made their way out of the observatory at the same time as the rest of the officers arriving.

"Does Moran know the full story?" John asked. Sherlock nodded silently.

"The question is will anyone believe him? I could just be paying him off too, after all." His voice was slightly bitter, reflecting his pent-up frustration with how easily it seemed everyone else had bought into Moriarty's lie. John sighed.

"Well, we'll see, won't we? For now, what do you say we go home?" Sherlock glanced at him in the darkness.

"To Baker Street? I know it wasn't sold." He sounded hesitant, still not certain that John would accept him back after such a monumental surprise. John smiled, even though Sherlock couldn't see it in the nighttime darkness.

"That's what I was thinking of; unless you had something different in mind?" Sherlock smiled back.

"Not in a million years, John. Now let's do go home; I could use some sleep."

It took a great deal of work on both John and Sherlock's part to convince Mrs. Hudson that she wasn't seeing a ghost, and after they'd sat her down and gotten her some very strong tea, both Sherlock and John stepped into 221B for the first time in a year. It was good to be back; as a matter of fact, it was fantastic. But there was still trouble ahead of them.

As far as most of the public, all of the media, and the police force were still concerned Sherlock Holmes was the mastermind behind all the crimes that he'd really solved. It was going to take no small amount of convincing, conniving, and ignoring on their parts to get everyone else to realize the truth, especially since Moran would probably do his best to deny that he'd been working for Moriarty and not Sherlock.

Lestrade couldn't hide Sherlock's survival forever, and soon enough the rumor was spreading fast. They decided to go into Scotland Yard on their own and clear things up, before Sherlock was arrested again for more crimes that he didn't commit. They disregarded most of the officers, who were having too much trouble believing their eyes to care that they were being ignored, and made their way to the Chief Superintendent's office. Sherlock gave a slightly sarcastic smile as they headed towards the door.

"Hmm, so, you punched him in the face and I'm a dead criminal mastermind- I'll bet that he's going to be _thrilled_ to see the two of us." After a long, loud conversation that very nearly turned into a melee, Sebastian Moran, Sherlock, John, Lestrade, and Jane were called into the Superintendent's office to explain exactly what the hell had gone down in that observatory. As Sherlock had predicted, Moran claimed that he'd been hired by Sherlock and not Moriarty, and that everything Sherlock, John, and Jane were saying was a lie.

"You've got no proof of anything," he spat. "And I'm not saying a word." Jane stood up, surprising everyone, and said,

"Well, you might not be saying a word, but I sure am. I heard you confess, to me, that you'd been working for this Moriarty fellow the whole time. And why would I lie? I've got no vested interest either way."

"You know him," Moran shot back, gesturing at John. "And you've got no proof either. I could have said anything to you in that blasted room." Jane gave an icy smile.

"Oh yes, you could have said anything," she responded, "but I _do_ have evidence of you confessing in 'that blasted room', as you call it. You see, I might have mentioned this, but at the observatory we're big on recording things. Like, really, really big on it. So yeah, I do have proof, and I have on tape and a computer file. Which would you prefer?"

Jane's recording of Moran's confession, combined with some thorough outside investigation and a lot of hard work on Sherlock and John's part, cleared the detective's name a month later. Soon enough they were back to the old ways again, bickering and running and solving crimes together while Sherlock put weird things in the fridge and John tried to get him to eat. Sherlock checked his email one morning after his name had been cleared and hollered to John in the kitchen,

"We've got a case!"

"Where?"

"Dorset; it sounds interesting. Want to come?"

"Of course I do." It wasn't as though nothing had happened; there was still a gulf where a year might have been, but it got smaller and smaller by the day as the two were drawn back together, like two galaxies going their own ways- no matter what, they'd always head in the same direction. Together.


End file.
